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TURNING THE PAGE WITH ARNIE

The PawSox have turned the page on the month of June. The club limped to the finish line, losing 11 of the last 13 June games. They did finish with a bang on the 30th, crushing Lehigh Valley 14-1, behind Justin Germano’s 8 inning effort and an explosive offense that erupted for19 hits in the most lopsided victory of 2012. While we ponder whether Germano will exercise his opt out clause or not, (I’m pretty certain he will) we caught up with manager Arnie Beyeler, who has a great poker face. You’d never know if he’d won the lottery, or just drank some sour milk. The second year skipper of the PawSox was obviously pleased with the results of the Saturday game. “Any time you get a win, it’s just what the doctor ordered, but the guys swung the bats well, we hadn’t done that in a while. It was nice to start the road trip off on a good note.”

Arnie had cautioned me exactly two weeks earlier not to get too excited when the PawSox were 20 games over .500, and five games up in the I.L. North. He was right on the money. “We had taken four straight from Buffalo and I don’t think we won a game for aweek and a half after that. It’s a game of streaks,a long season. The guys come out every day and do the same things to prepare. It goes back to the old adage of only being asd good as your starting pitching. We didn’t pitch well for a while. When you’re not pitching and you’re not hitting, it’s tough to compete.”

The revolving door of players usually begins around the first of August. This season it began in late June. You really do need a program to identify the guys. Arnie explained. “A lot of guys have ‘outs’ in their contracts. You have to deal with that. We just let the guys throw and see what happens. We’ve got a good group of guys here. You let the players and their agents do their thing and see what happens.”

Arnie enjoyed the complete offensive barrage his team shelled out on Saturday. Hitters #4-#8 combined to go 17-25. “We’ve been waiting for a game like that all season. We didn’t know who’d be here, especially Andy Laroche (7-9, HR, 4 RBI in his first two PawSox games) That’s baseball. You never know. We’ll go out there today and see what happens. You ‘ve got to enjoy it while you’ve got it.”

The Iron Pigs are scheduled to have former National League MVP Ryan Howard in their lineup for the Sunday night game. Arnie had a seemingly simple solution to prepare for the Philadelphia slugger. “You try to get him in and out of there as quick as you can. Hope he’s not too healthy yet. You try to nwork around him a little bit and hope he doesn’t do too much damage. He’s up here for a reason. Trying to get his work in. Hopefully, we’ll keep the ball in the ballpark and be OK.”

This is a strange week as far as the schedule is concerned. After three games here in Allentown in two days, the Sox return to McCoy for a pair against Rochester and then hit the road for three in Rochester. Not really convenient, but Beyeler has prepareed his troops. “It’s just a grind. it’s a tough situation. You let them know ahead of time and talk about it. Tell them to get their rest, their sleep. It is what it is. You have to do it. You make those adjustments. Nobody likes it. You can’t control it. Just go out and try to play a couple of good games.”

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